


Atonement

by elfin



Series: Atonement [1]
Category: Flatliners (1990)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 09:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Immediately following the end of the movie....





	Atonement

‘My father and I…’ Rachel explains. We’re talking in whispers, all hunched in the living room of my apartment, candles lit because the electricity’s out. We put Nelson in my bed, buried under a pile of blankets. The door between my bedroom and the living room is ajar and I’m purposely sitting where I can glance up and see him sleeping. Three times I checked he was breathing before I agreed to let him be. Thank Christ for Steckle, the voice of reason over these insane, unnatural last days. 

I’m still mad that Nelson didn’t tell us the truth, but at the same time something broke open inside me when I thought we’d lost him, something infinite, something bottomless. Something I didn’t recognise and can’t put a name to. Doesn’t matter, as long as I can see him, as long as I can see the silent constant of his heart beat on the monitor next to my bed. Steady. Normal. Not locked in a nightmare but healing. His system is still in shock. He needs rest.

We’re all in shock. The JD’s helping. There’s an almost empty bottle on the glass coffee table in the centre of our circle, a second one standing by. It’s the only way we’re going to sleep tonight. Still, chances are low. Joe fills our empty glasses the moment Rachel holds out her empty one. She’s at the other end of the couch, at one with my cushions, her legs tangled with mine. 

Neither of us are reading anything into it, into what happened between us last night either. Mitigating circumstances. If she wants to take it further I’m game. Unless of course…. 

And again I glance up, through the crack in the door, to where Nelson’s head is on my pillow, blond hair with blood red highlights from injuries inflicted by a dead boy. 

I can hear myself screaming at him for not telling us, but I don’t know if I’d have even believed him. If I close my eyes I can see him climbing the stairs out in the hall, already wonky on his feet and scared, so scared he frightened me. Going to see Winnie was my atonement, my escape. Going to see Billy was his. Why the fuck didn’t he tell me Billy was dead?

Three years at med school, Nelson’s been there. If not a rock then an island. If not dependable then a constant. In a matter of days I watched him fall apart completely, come unstuck from reality, or what I thought was reality. For the first time in our friendship he needed me. If things hadn’t been so weird I might have taken advantage, but I was wrapped up in myself, in my own nightmare. In Rachel’s, because it was easier than being wrapped up in his.

The crack of the new bottle being opened snaps me back to the present. I tip the contents of my glass down my throat and concentrate on not choking as I hold it out for a refill. Sleep isn’t an option. I’m trying to work out how I’m going to face the day tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I have no idea right now.

‘The hangover’s going to be a bitch,’ Steckle's comments, and I realise he stopped drinking three or four shots ago. He’s the brains among us for sure. Standing by us while the we entered into a bidding war with our lives, and for what? Fame, fortune, the answer to life and death? No. Because Nelson was baiting us the whole time. I have an excuse: I’ve spent three years trying to be him. What’s Joe’s excuse? And Rachel’s? 

Rachel, I understand, trying to hold her own in this odd circle of friends she’s chosen. She doesn’t need to. We already respected her, would always have respected her, as a doctor, as a professional. Nelson and I have had a crush on her since we first laid eyes on her. But then, that could be a lie too. Mutual admiration hidden behind a mutual crush. Held up against what we’ve all been through for the last few days, it actually seems pathetic. 

‘Dave?’ I don’t know how many times Steckle's said my name. I have to turn my head to look at him and the expression on his face is… understanding, sympathy. Empathy. ‘He’s okay. We saved him. He’s going to be fine.’

What if we hadn’t? We gave up on him, all of us. I gave up on him. He’d been gone too long; heart stopped, brain dead, starved of oxygen. Lost to us. When it came down to it, I couldn’t let him go. He didn’t deserve to die, no matter how shitty a friend he’d been. Ho matter what jealousy had lead him to. But jealousy of who? Me? Or Rachel?

See, for three years, more or less, Nelson and i were inseparable. That kind of friendship that might have tipped over into something else, something more, if enough Tequila was applied. And once or twice… now and again…. Then there was Rachel. 

There’s something unspoken between Nelson and I, something that before felt insurmountable but now, after everything, seems trivial. Why can’t I just say it? Why can’t I just tell him? I can see it in his eyes so why can’t he just tell me? We’re both fucking idiots. Death showed us the mistakes of our past. If we went under again, would it show us the errors we’re still making?

‘I have to talk to him.’ It’s the JD speaking. I try to get off the couch and end up on my knees on the wooden floor, Joe trying in vain to reach me over the table and Steckle shuffling over to stop me from doing whatever stupid thing I’m trying to do. My sudden movements have even roused Rachel from where she was possibly sleeping on my cushions. 

‘He’s sleeping, he needs to rest.’ Steckle will make a wonderful doctor; perfect bedside manner. ‘Please, Dave, let him rest. He’s there, right there.’ It’s as if he knows, as if he sees. He points, and I follow his finger through the gap in the door and will my pulse to slow back to normal. 

Deep breath. ’Sorry.’

I think he’s going to push me back on to the couch, but Steckle takes my arm and leads me through to the bedroom, pushing the door open silently. I can crouch by my bed and hold my hand above Nelson’s open mouth, feel his breath against my palm. The pile of blankets rises and falls slowly with his breath, correlating to the rise and fall of the peaks on the ECG. He’s alive. He’s going to make it. We haven’t lost him. I haven’t lost him. There’s time to tell him everything I’ve kept from him. Time to drag from him everything he’s been keeping from me.

Steckle tugs on my arm and I rise, go with him back into the lounge and fall into the embrace of my couch, laying my head on the arm where I can still see blue peaks and troughs of Nelson’s breathing, and the blond head on my pillow. Finally I close my eyes and find peace in the darkness and in the quiet voices of my friends. Steckle keeps talking until I fall asleep. His voice keeps the nightmares at bay.

*

TBC


End file.
